The sixth Conservation in Action Tour heads to central Illinois next month for a look at innovative conservation practices in Livingston County. Karen Scanlon is executive director of the Conservation Technology Information Center which hosts the tour each year.
“We will be featuring three farms on July 10th,” she explained. “First we’ll go to Terry Bachtold’s farm and talk to him and some other folks about soil health. Then we’ll go to the Kilgus Dairy just outside of Fairbury, Illinois and there we’ll talk with a number of speakers about efficient management of nutrients and why that’s important and some technologies and tools and practices that can help producers efficiently manage those nutrients, save money, be productive and have a healthy crop while protecting our resources.”
The final stop focuses on drainage water management at the Trainor farm, “and we will have a newly constructed drainage control structure so folks will be able to get up close and see how that works and holds back the water in the field when needed. We’ll also see a tiling demonstration.”
The tour activities begin with a social the night before, July 9th, and then Wednesday’s tour which also features two guest speakers.
“Our lunch speaker will be Denise Keehner and she leads EPA’s office of watersheds, oceans and wetlands, and our dinner speaker will be Jean Payne and she is president of the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association and she’ll provide a great wrap up of the day.”
Registration can be done online or by calling CTIC at (765) 494-9555. See more about the tour at their website and hear more from Scanlon in the HAT interview:Karen Scanlon
(Pictured: tile monitoring system at the Trainor Farm)